


Passion and Forgivness

by justhuman



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Buffyverse Improv, Gen, Improv, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-05-22
Updated: 2002-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:36:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justhuman/pseuds/justhuman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giles remembers roses and lost loves</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passion and Forgivness

It was between us, man to man or perhaps better said, man to monster. He never told me if the nightmares started after that night, or a few weeks later, after his visit to my dysfunctional family. As a party game, I had broken his fingers, one by one. But his battered body was nothing compared to his most precious memories tainted by Drucilla's lying kisses.

In one of those quiet moments we had alone, he whispered that he didn't sleep for 2 days after he found her. Those things he would breathe into my ear were always the most painful, when he would tell me the secrets that no other soul knew.

*Passion…

Of course that wasn't the only pain, but you would find no evidence of the physical torment on my body no matter how many times I submitted to it. He loves Buffy, in some ways more than I do. If our roles had been reversed, I would have killed him long ago and just expected her to get over it. Vengeance, revenge, they would have been mine, but not him. There is sterner stuff in him and for Buffy's sake, he let it fester and grow…

*It lies in all of us sleeping, waiting...

On a conscious level, he probably never planned any of this other than the initial, failed attack. The human heart was not meant to withstand that much pain. It wasn't until I was settled in LA that he let any of it loose.

*Although unwanted, unbidden, it will stir, open it's jaws and howl.

At first I wasn't sure what was going on. A plain envelope, no return address, post-marked Sunnydale containing only the single petal from a red rose. Its aroma wafted from the stack of junk mail, calling me. The postal sorting equipment had done its work, crushing the frail living thing until the envelope was stained red like blood and infused with the scent. One a day, everyday, for a month. The postmarks confirmed it.

*It speaks to us, guides us...

Finally, petals exhausted, the bare stem complete with thorns came wrapped in a hand written note.

"With the police and the coroner up and down the stairs, they became crushed into the carpet. I would wake up in the morning and head downstairs to make my tea. My foot would land on the wrong step. Roses. Out of nowhere, I would smell roses. It is a great desire of mine that you learn to hate them as much as I do."

*Passion rules us all.

At first I didn't acknowledge the petals or the note. What could I say to him? What could I do to make it up to him? Sorry would have been pathetic. Years of living with the horrors I had committed made it impossible for me to cry over a single death. He understood all that. When we needed to speak or if I went to Sunnydale to protect Buffy, we treated it as if it were all business.

The petals came periodically, always one at a time. I could see him in my minds eye carefully tending a single perfect rose. Storing it in the refrigerator to keep it fresh, changing the water everyday. Did he shed tears every time he looked at it? As Angelus, I had spent months perfecting the exquisite torture of Dru to make her into an unimaginable monster. I had relished every moment of it. The pain those petals inflicted on me were unbearable. How much more excruciating for him?

*And we obey. What other choice do we have?

It was in the moment that I came to this realization that I could no longer stand the silence. What I had done was a single, heinous act. He on the other hand through his macabre ritual was turning it into an eternal self-torture. I was determined to end it no matter what it took. I arrived at his doorstep and offered him a stake. He rolled it in his fingers, contemplating it carefully and then invited me in.

*Passion is the source of our finest moments,

Pouring some scotch for both of us, he sat down and started to tell me about her.

"You know, I never knew what Jenny saw in me, stuffy librarian, not quite twice her age. I never had any compunction about telling her how much I disliked every novel activity that she dragged me to. Football games, monster trucks, she spent her summer at a new age campout and I spent my summer cross-referencing. I'd have done anything she asked just to be near her…

*The joy of love…

"We never…we never made love. Did you know that? We had plans for the weekend after Buffy's birthday, but of course… everything happened. Both Buffy and I felt betrayed, that she had come here to spy and meddle. I still wanted her. Still believed that she must have had some good intentions. But it hurt. Buffy decided to forgive her for my sake, she was coming here the night that you murdered her."

I wanted to look away from his eyes, but like an animal caught in a bright light, I was paralyzed.

*the clarity of hatred…

"There was a rose on the door when I walked it. I called to her but there was no answer." He went on with painstaking detail. I didn't have to hear because every facet was ingrained in my memory. This was not some off the cuff random act of violence. A master had meticulously laid it out for lasting effect.

"I stood at the top of the stairs for I don't know how long. Finally I went and sat next to her on the bed. I stroked her cold face. It could have been minutes or hours, I was overwhelmed… with love? Pain? Disbelief?"

*and the ecstasy of grief.

My face was wet. For a moment our eyes locked and we saw each other and understood. But he had bottled it up for too long and a moment of connection was not enough. Glasses shattered as he overturned the coffee table to charge me. His fists pounded into my face and I didn't resist. Instinct made me ball up as I fell to the floor. I tried to unwind so he would have better access to kick me, but some glimmer of self-preservation would not let me.

He never raised his voice as he hurled obscenities and curses at me. Mustn't disturb the neighbors. At some point, he went for the weapons chest and came back with a billyclub. I gave him my back. Did it go on for an hour or was it more? Finally, there was a crash when he threw the weapon into a wall and fell to the floor beside me. Crying.

*It hurts sometimes more than we can bear.

I passed out there on the floor. Moving wasn't much of an option with as many broken ribs as I had. When I woke the next evening, he was waiting with blood from the butcher shop. He peeled my shirt off where it had stuck to deep gashes. He cleaned the wounds he inflicted with a gentleness that I did not deserve. Having a reflection would have been a priceless thing at that moment. From what he described, Angelus would have been pleased with the artistry of the bruises.

It wasn't the last time I went to him. Sometimes roses in the mail would draw me back, but more often it was my own guilt over things at home. Nearly killing Cordelia and Wes the night I was drugged, the bruises and scars that I did nothing to comfort after Faith's visit. I was the penitent and he became my priest.

*If we could live without passion, Maybe we'd know some kind of peace...

I never confessed my sins as such, but he filled the gap every time by whispering a detail I never knew into my ear. Pistachio was her favorite ice cream. She couldn't abide the cold. My urge was to beg him to stop, but I couldn't because a part of me was desperate to know.

*But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank.

I almost went to him the night I decided to apologize to the employees that I had fired. But the solace I derived from the physical abuse was too good for me. Instead I went back to endure Cordelia's cold shoulder, the cutting edge of Gunn's glare and to swallow my pride while kissing Wesley's ass on my hands and knees.

Their barbs were more ruthless than his clubs and whips. Forgiveness was an elusive prize, but one I could not stop fighting for. After all,

*Without Passion...we'd be truly dead.

~end~

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Magpie for the beta--I don't always take good advice, so it rather goes without saying that all mistakes are my own.
> 
> Written for: Written for Improv #42 "You're Doing It All Wrong!"


End file.
